Making 2019 My Own

Now I realise everybody else already published this post over a month ago now at the very start of 2019, but having only started my blog a few days ago, this is the best I can do. So here goes.

2018 was an extremely up and down year. I went on an incredible holiday to Florida with my family and got to explore the magical city of Paris in the snow with my wonderful boyfriend. I got a new job. Loved (and still do love) my co workers – hello Shannen and Lottie. And made a lot of wonderful memories. In those ways I was extremely lucky.

I also found my already very unstable (just how I like ‘em) health decline towards the end of the year and my levels of physical pain increased with it. It was a year of doctors appointments, diagnosis’s and an influx of medication. I guess you could say it was a bit of a rollercoaster of a year, but a new one has begun. These are a few of my goals for the end of the year, and how I plan to own it.

1) Get a place with my boyfriend

By the end of this year I’d love to be living in a rented flat with my boyfriend. With the money I’m currently earning this unfortunately is not a possibility at this point in time, but there’s a whole (almost) 11 months to change that situation.

I did very briefly move out and into student halls when I started at the University of Portsmouth in 2017, but moved back home shortly after. The halls I stayed in were lovely and newly built for my year of freshers to move into, and living independently – even for a short time – was a learning curve, one I did genuinely enjoy. I soon enough realised though that I’m a girl who thrives with all the home comforts, comforts that living in away from everything I knew in Portsmouth just didn’t provide.

With that in mind, living much closer to home – within the borders of my home city of Brighton and Hove – with my amazing boyfriend is something I am so excited for and so ready to take on.

2) Get my driving license

Now this one I hope to have checked off my bucket list by the time I go away, on the 11th of May. I’ve really only just restarted my lessons after a 6 month break so giving myself 3 months to pass (or at least be test ready) seems like too little time, but I’m taking 4-6 hours worth of lessons per week with some previous experience, so hopefully it’s a realistic goal. I’m beyond excited to be able to drive, the freedom it will give me is almost tangible, and as I mentioned, hopefully this won’t be too far into the future.

My poor little Nissan Micra – Benji – has been sat on the road outside my house for nearing a year now just yearning to be driven. I’m doing this for you, Benji.

Benji and I bonding

3) Learn to budget better

Living pay check to pay check, I can’t really afford to be splashing out every time I take a trip into town, or treating myself as I ‘just got paid’ when in reality, my last pay check was over two weeks ago and I’m nearing the point of taking out a loan to buy myself lunch at Costa. I can’t afford it, but I do it none-the-less. And still get surprised when – at the end of the month – I am skint.

Please, if I ever consider becoming a money saving advice blog, abandon me. Save yourselves.

I realise how many budgeting blogs, books and apps are available, and I do have Monzo. I don’t use Monzo. But the app is installed in my phone and the bright orange card is sat collecting dust in my purse, so surely that counts for something? That being said, by the end of 2019 I’d love to have learnt successfully how to budget each pay check so I can finish the month with £100-200 left over, maybe with some of that money I can buy myself aforementioned Costa lunch without any loans.

4) Get better at putting into my savings

I’ve had an ISA for a few years and more recently (in the past year) I’ve started a savings for my driving lessons and car insurance. Despite being very good at not dipping into it, I’m very good at not putting into it.

I am just a bit proud to say I’ve already put a bit of a plan into action. A while back I downloaded an app called Chip, it basically syncs up to your bank account and every few days/week, takes out a small amount that it calculates by taking into account what you have spent that week, and puts into a savings (stored within the app, which is secure). I find I don’t really notice the money going when it’s in such small amounts (if you like the sound of Chip and want to give it a go, sign up with my code CS2P3H, it’ll give both you and me 1% extra interest on the savings). I’ve planned out that the savings from Chip will go into my ISA, and my car savings will be topped up with savings from Plum.

Plums interface. I covered my bank balance out of shame.

Now Plum is a very similar app, it works in the same way as Chip but runs through Facebook messenger rather than it’s own app. To be honest, it’s almost the exact same as Chip in my opinion, so no point going over it. Both work really well for my needs, because paying into both my savings and my phone bill at the same time hits HARD. Hopefully with this implemented I can continue it well into 2019 and beyond.

5) Go to the gym/exercise regularly with a consistent routine

My current gym routine includes using the treadmill in my garage every day last summer for a period of about 2 weeks using Couch to 5k. I haven’t gone on it since, but similar to the Monzo card, it’s still there making me feel a little better about myself.

The main thing stopping me from getting a gym membership is money reasons (and see above post: I do not have the disposable income due to my own financial ineptitude), and due to previously mentioned health reasons I’m very limited on what I could actually do at the gym, strength/body weight training would be a pretty big no-no.

So whether or not the gym is involved or whether exercise comes purely from doing some classes, utilising my treadmill and getting outside, I will be exercising 4/5 days a week. Speaking it into existence. (Its also worth mentioning that this – I hope – will come far before the end of 2019).

6) Fully understand blogging

This goal I will fulfil exponentially through 2019 as I get to grips more with the blogging world. This post is only my 3rd, so bearing in mind my first post only went up a few days ago, I clearly have a long way to go before I’ve fully come to terms with running a blog and all the subsequent technicalities, but I’m so excited to learn.

To be honest, I have no idea how many followers I want by the end of 2019, or how many posts I want to have published. So this goal I’m setting for myself will be more subjective, and less focused on numbers and statistics. I want to be able to say I am blogging confidently and with enjoyment while knowing exactly what I’m doing (most of the time) and the path I’m following.

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Thank you so much for reading this. It will be an interesting one to look at come New Years 2020 (that feels weird to type). It’s quite difficult to think up goals for a point in the future that seems so far away, and that has the potential to make those goals fairly easy to stop maintaining. Negative thoughts surrounding the need to keep them up for a long period of time can take over, and self doubt sets in. At that point, it’s a battle of self motivation, taking it day by day and week by week.

What resolutions and goals have you set for yourself this year, or what would you like to achieve? I’d love to hear about them,

Hope to see you on the next post,

Kristie x